When we wrote about Psycho a while back we came across this Yugoslavian poster which we're sharing today, finally. Usually we write about films on their release dates but there isn't an exact one known for Yugoslavia. It arrived there in 1963, though, three years after its U.S. run. This two tone poster is about as low rent as it gets, but it's still effective, we think.

We rarely see promo posters of Japanese films from other countries that are visually interesting, but this one from the former Yugoslavia breaks the trend. It's for a film called in Croatian Hiljadu i jedna noć u Tokiju. The title in Japanese was 东京厄洛斯一千零一夜. In both languages you get a translation along the lines of “Tokyo One Thousand and One Nights,” referencing the famed collection of folk and erotic tales from the Islamic Golden Age. In romanized Japanese the title was Tokyo eros senya ichiya, and in English it was Eros Nights in Tokyo, which omits the Arabian Nights reference for some reason. We haven't seen the film, but it starred three of our favorite Japanese actresses—Izumi Shima, Megi Ayako, and Erina Miyai—which means we'll be looking for it. If we find it we'll revisit this subject. Tokyo eros senya ichiya opened in Japan today in 1979.

Above you see a poster from the former Yugoslavia, in Serbo-Croatian (we think), for the film Devojka za zabavu, starring Beba Lončar. We haven't watched this, so no summary, but it's available should you feel the urge. We're primarily interested in the art. The poster says this is a Španjolski film, or Spanish film, and indeed it was originally made in Spain as Amor en un espejo, and titled in the U.S. Cover Girl. The poster was adapted from the Spanish promo art painted by Carlos Escobar, who signed his work as Esc. On the Spanish version his signature is prominent, but the Yugoslavians decided to wipe it out for some reason. We already showed one example of Escobar's talent featuring Sharon Tate, and it may be one of the most beautiful of the hundreds of posters to adorn Pulp Intl. over the years. This one, which uses the lovely Lončar as a model, is also good. Evidence of what a big star the Serb actress was in her native Yugoslavia exists in her name, thrice repeated above the film's title, which is not how the Spanish poster was set up. Check out the Tate promo here. And check out Lončar here. Amor en un espejo premiered in Spain today in 1968.

Here's little curio from the former Yugoslavia—a record sleeve from Serb pop-rock artist Boris Bizetić with a Marilyn Monroe cover motif. We've seen her image rather poorly used on album covers, but this one is nice, we think, if almost certainly unlicensed. And the music? Hah hah. We dare you.

Above and below you see some Yugoslavian promo cards for Opasnije od muškaraca, aka Deadlier Than the Male, a film we’ve talked about a few times before. The text is in Serbian, and you’ll notice it describes the movie as “Američki." Actually, it was British. But Brits, Americans, who can tell them apart, really? We imagine the Yugoslavian distributors of the film knew quite well it came from Britain-based Greater Films Ltd., but that they labeled it Američki to make it more marketable. As if Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina aren’t sufficient. See more from the film here.

María Baxa was born in 1946 in Belgrade, which in today’s deconstructed Yugoslavia makes her Serb. She appeared in a few Serbian-language films, then ascended into Italian cinema, appearing in productions such as Il commissario Verrazzano with Janet Agren and Patrizia Gori, and Incontri molto... ravvicinati del quarto tipo, aka Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. According to Michele Giordano’s 2000 retrospective La commedia erotica Italiana: vent’anni di cinema sexy, Baxa left the movies in the late 1980s and became an architect. This shot is from 1970.

The languages were different but we’re pretty sure the appreciation for Raquel Welch was the same.

We’re looping back to the former Yugoslavia today, this time with a rare film program for Raquel Welch’s One Million Years B.C. If it seems we just talked about this movie, you’re right. We shared a promo from the film last week. What you see above is the front of a dual language promo pamphlet, half written in… well we aren’t sure. The language situation is complicated there. Half in Serbo-Croatian and half in Slovenian, we think. Feel free to correct us. In any case, it’s a pretty cool little item.

Duga was a publisher in the former Yugoslavia that reprinted many English language mysteries and thrillers into Serbian. The company’s name means Rainbow, and this novel from Donald Westlake was released in 1969 as a Zeleni Dodatak, or Green Edition, with Ursula Andress on the back. We have no idea why she’s there. We assume Duga put random hotties on the rear covers to entice buyers. The text there says “to your album,” which we like to think of as a mental album, like a spank bank, but that’s just us being rude. Obviously, the term refers to one’s collection of Green Edition back cover celebs. Collect them all and win a prize! That’s right! A weeklong trip to Zlatibor! Okay, now for what we don’t know. We don’t know which Westlake book this is. Desna Ruka translates from Serbian as “right hand,” but Eda Ganoleza translates as nothing—at least on the interfaces we used. A scan of the Westlake bibliography turns up no novel containing right hand in the title. So your guess is as good as ours. Doubtless people in Zlatibor know.

This 1970 photo shows the beautiful Serb actress Beba Lončar, who began acting for cinema in the former Yugoslavia and soon found international success in Italy. Her real first name is Desanka, but she began using her nickname Beba professionally in 1961, just a couple of years into her career. We’re pretty sure you can guess what it means, but if not, take another look at her and think about it.

The divide between fact and propaganda is never so clear as in hindsight.

Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day—the Allied landings in Northern France—and since most observances take the same form, we thought it would be a good opportunity to look at the event from a different angle by sharing something you might not see anywhere else. So above and below are some front and back covers of Signal, a German propaganda magazine printed from 1940 to 1945 and distributed in neutral, friendly, and occupied countries. These are from Yugoslavia, and their text is Croatian. Glancing at the images is to marvel at the always yawning chasm between propaganda and reality, for though Signal showed Hitler’s soldiers defeating foes while winning hearts and minds, when most of these were printed his army was not only the most hated entity in the Western world, but was already in the process of being fatally smashed in the crucible of a bitter Russian winter against a hardened foe that had always considered ice, snow, wind and frostbite its most important allies.

Once the other allies, led by the U.S., dragged the Germans into a two-front war, defeat was assured. That outcome could have been forestalled perhaps by the development of advanced technology, particularly a German atomic bomb, but it never quite happened. And yet under the direction of the Wehrmacht and Hasso von Wedel, winning imagery kept spinning from the web of German presses, depicting beautiful frauen cavorting in the homeland and smiling soldiers abroad doing the tough but necessary work of unifying Europe. But the intended recipients of these messages had begun to understand the truth—the Germans were finished, and the devastation they had wrought on foreign lands was coming home to roost. When bombs finally fell like rain on Berlin and enemy soldiers stormed the ramparts east and west, Hitler’s imagined 1,000-year Reich was over. It had lasted barely five years.

The federal penitentiary located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes. The island had been home to a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison over the years. In 1972, it would become a national recreation area open to tourists, and it would receive national landmark designations in 1976 and 1986.

1916—Einstein Publishes General Relativity

German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity. Among the effects of the theory are phenomena such as the curvature of space-time, the bending of rays of light in gravitational fields, faster than light universe expansion, and the warping of space time around a rotating body.

1931—Nevada Approves Gambling

In the U.S., the state of Nevada passes a resolution allowing for legalized gambling. Unregulated gambling had been commonplace in the early Nevada mining towns, but was outlawed in 1909 as part of a nationwide anti-gaming crusade. The leading proponents of re-legalization expected that gambling would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, gaming proved over time to be one of the least cyclical industries ever conceived.

1941—Tuskegee Airmen Take Flight

During World War II, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, aka the Tuskegee Airmen, is activated. The group is the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, and serves with distinction in Africa, Italy, Germany and other areas. In March 2007 the surviving airmen and the widows of those who had died received Congressional Gold Medals for their service.

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